Knowing The Great I Am

Let all our employment be to know God: the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him. Brother Lawrence The Practice of the Presence of God (17th century)

Brother Lawrence

The Vastness of God

The first step to learning more about God is to gain a better understanding of His Vastness.

Louie Giglio did a talk on this back in 2008 during the “How Great Is Our God” tour with Chris Tomlin.

Psalm 19:1 NASB95

The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

Our Sun

If the earth were a golf ball, the sun in comparison, would be 15 feet in diameter and you could put 960,000 golf balls in the sun.

Betelguese

Betelguese is twice the diameter of the orbit of the earth around the sun.

That would be 6 empire state buildings on top of each other.

Put your golf ball at the base of the Empire State Building.

262 trillion golf balls inside it.

Fill up the Superdome in Atlanta 3000 times.

Mu Cephei

The width of 2 Golden Gate Bridges end to end.

7 quadrillion earths inside it.

1 million seconds ago - 12 days.

1 billion seconds ago - Sometime in 1993.

1 trillion seconds ago - 29,700 BC.

1 quadrillion seconds ago - 30 million, 800 thousand years ago

Canis Majoris - The Largest Star discovered as of 2008.

The height of Mount Everest. six miles above sea level.

Enough to cover the entire state of Texas almost 2’ deep in golf balls.

But not only is God’s Creation vastly large, it is infinitely small.

We have been able to get to the subatomic level of understanding, but there is still a vastness of existence even smaller than that.

How small does it go?

Infinitely large and infinitely small and yet, God is greater still.

He created all of it with the breath of His mouth.

A Word from His lips. Let there be...and it was.

And yet mankind doesn’t fear a being that powerfully amazing?

We don’t take seriously what He says?

Or respect Him enough to not mess with Him.

Let alone love Him, worship Him, adore Him, and desire to know Him better.

And yet, the point of my message this morning is that God wants us to know Him and He has made it very possible for us to get to know Him.

He is not just a vast God way out there.

He is a God who is right here in our midst whispering to our souls to find all our satisfaction in Him.

In Him we will find our joy and delight.

In Him we will find our needs and desires met.

And that amazingly ginormous God that is over all chose to reveal Himself to us in 2 simple words.

Probably because He knew our peabrains couldn’t handle any more. Those 2 Words?

I AM

What does that name mean and what does it tell us about Him?

That will be our quest this morning.

But we will also be making the connection of The Great I Am to Jesus.

Since this is the first Sunday in Lent, over the course of the next 7 weeks we will be looking at the 7 “I Am” Statements of Jesus and it is through the “I Ams” that we will get to know God in greater and more intimate ways.

Read Exodus 3:10-15

Who Am I? - vs 11

vs 11 - When Moses says, “Who am I?” This was a familiar idiom of the Near East that stressed the magnitude of the inequity between the agent and the mission.

In other words, Moses is saying, “I am not anywhere close to where I need to be to do this.”

I’m not worthy to be asked to do this great thing.

I don’t have what it takes to accomplish it.

I’m not even equipped to be successful in this task.

And this exchange is actually fleshed out in Chapter 4.

Moses feels unfit, humbled by his rejection of his own people, with a bounty on his head from Pharoah, and he had just spent the last 40 years in seclusion in the wilderness.

Moses’ protests in ch 4, include the following: “I am not respected...I am not eloquent...I am not brave...

But the point is: Who Moses is is not at all as important as who God is.

I AM - vs 12

To each of the concerns of Moses, God replies, “I will be with you.”

God does not say, “I’ll make you feel important enough, or eloquent enough, or brave enough, or knowledgeable enough.”

Instead God simply says, “I will be there.”

Fuquay, Rob. The God We Can Know: Exploring the "I Am" Sayings of Jesus . Upper Room Books. Kindle Edition.

In his declaration “I AM” God says, “You will not be unfit, since I will be with you.”

I will supply your deficiencies.

I will impart all the qualities that you need.

I will strengthen you.

I will guide you.

I will be an active agent in your quest.

How many times do we feel the same way that Moses did?

So what’s the first thing we learn about the Great I Am?

The Great I Am Will Supply Whatever We Need

Psalm 23:1 CSB

The Lord is my shepherd; I have what I need.

Breaking down the word here in vs 12: The translation is: I will be with you.

hayah - “to be” “to exist”.

it is a verb.

God wants to be an active part of our lives.

He does not want to be distant.

Imperfect form - continuous action.

Could have been translated as “I am” and still convey the meaning.

It is this ongoing presence in the present.

As in “I am with you presently, and will continue to be with you indefinitely.”

So, this tells us that not only will God supply all our needs, the Great I Am is also an eternally present God.

The Great I Am Is An Eternally Present God

Not I was or will be, but I Am. He is the eternally present One.

Perhaps Moses only knew God as the distant Sovereign and not as the immanent God who cares for and loves His chosen ones.

It’s amazing that both of Moses’ objections in vs 11, were answered with lessons on the nature and character of God.

Our God is a God who comes near to us.

Who is with us.

Who wants to be dynamically present.

Psalm 46:1 NASB95

God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.

And this, then, is our first connection to Jesus - our Emmanuel. God with us.

What Is Your Name? vs 13

This is a Near East Idiomatic question:

What does that name mean or signify in circumstances such as we are in?

In other words, “What good is that God to us in our predicament?”

The Egyptians believed that names possessed magical powers.

Moses was afraid that the people being immersed in Egyptian culture would want some reassurance that God was indeed powerful enough to defeat the Egyptian gods.

We see the same idea on the mission field today.

The tribe members say, “Who is your God that we should serve Him?”

Our witch doctor serves a very powerful god.

In addition, they believed that knowing one’s name transferred some of the namesake’s authority.

So in that cultural mindset, to the Israelites in Egypt, Moses knowing God’s name transferred God’s authority onto Moses.

Remember, Moses was once a prince of Egypt, but that wasn’t enough. They had rejected him as prince.

He needed an authority greater than the Pharaoh himself.

But the greater point going back to verse 12 - Moses, you need me more than you need power and authority.

I will be there.

I AM!

The Great I Am Is The God Above All Gods - vs 14

“I am that I am” - the repetition of hayah is used to express totality, intensity, and emphasis.

Much like Jesus saying, Truly, truly, I say to you.

Or in the Seraphim's thricefold declaration that God is holy, holy, holy.

I Am The Self-Existent One

I am truly he who exists before and above all others.

I have always been and will always be.

There is no other god

Isaiah 43:10 NASB95

“You are My witnesses,” declares the Lord, “And My servant whom I have chosen, So that you may know and believe Me And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me.

Isaiah 44:6 NASB95

“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me.

God declares His independence.

He is not dependent on anything.

He is the Creator.

He has life within Himself.

He is the Eternal One.

Not bound by time and space

That of real, perfect, unconditional, independent existence.

I Am The Self-Sufficient One

He does not need anything.

Everything He needs He has within Himself.

In other words, The Great I Am Is Enough.

The Great I Am Is Enough.

All of you is more than enough for all of me.

YHWH - vs 15

YHWH - noun related to the verb “hayah” and although it also speaks of God’s self-existence, it’s more than just that.

The noun God uses as His personal name speaks of Him being a relational God.

He is personal, real, and knowable.

The God who spoke all into existence speaks Moses’ name.

He knows and speaks your name.

He knows everything about us.

Psalm 139:1–6 NASB95

O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

As I said earlier, God wants to be an active part of our lives.

The Great I Am Is A Relational God Who Wants Us To Know Him Personally

It’s why re-emphasizes - I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

And in this relational intimacy of present action in our lives, He desires to spend eternity with us.

The Great I Am Is The Eternally Unchangeable One

Also in emphasizing that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He is revealing that He is the Eternally Unchangeable One

If the Great I Am is eternally present in the present, then who He is now, is who He will be in the next now moment.

God’s name and character and essence do not and will not change.

The same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be the same God who will be with Israel during the Tribulation and through the Millennial Kingdom.

And He is the same God that will be with us through whatever we go through.

And here then is another nod to Jesus

Hebrews 13:8 NASB95

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Which means...

He is an unmoving rock that will reliably keep us stable and safe.

He is a firm foundation.

We can trust Him.

Finally,

The Great I Am Wants Us To Not Forget Who He Is And What He Does

His name is to be a memorial.

It is to be for the purpose of uttering the mighty deeds of God throughout all generations.

He is to remembered by this name forever.

Our God, He Has Done Great Things.

My Closing Connection to Jesus which we’ll come back to next week

The Great I Am - Jesus

John 8:56–59 NASB95

“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.

Jesus claimed to be the Great “I AM”.

The Pharisees were ready to stone Him for His blasphemy.

John 10:30–33 NASB95

“I and the Father are one.” The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”

Again, the Pharisees were ready to stone Him for claiming to be God. Blasphemy. Just adding fuel to the fire.

John 18:6–7 NASB95

So when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground. Therefore He again asked them, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.”

Ego Eimi - I AM

The same power that calmed the storm at sea is for a moment calming the storm in the Garden.

Conclusion:

The Great I Am desires you to know Him more fully.

He wants you to know He will be present and active in your life.

He wants you to know that He will guide, protect and provide for you.

He wants you to know that He will never change and that you can trust Him.

He wants you to know that He is the God of gods, King of Kings, Lord of Lords and that there is no other God besides Him.

He wants you to know that He is more than enough for whatever you need.

Remember, it’s not about what you are not, or what you can’t do, or what you don’t have, it’s about Who He is.

He is the Great I Am.

Closing Song: